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PRESENTED BY THE CITY OF PHILflDELPHlA. 



THE 



LIBERTY BELL 




NDEPENDENGE HALL, 



PHILADELPHIA. 



1893, 



PHII^ADELPHIA : 
Allen, I,ane & Scott's Pointing House, 

229-231-233 South Fifth Street, 
I So;,. 




\ 




THE LIBERTY BELL, 
Independence Hall, Philadelphia. 

(photogravure.) 



THE 



LIBERTY BELU 
Independence Hall, 



PHILADELPHIA 



A COMPLETE RECORD OF ALL THE GREAT EVENTS ANNOUNCED 
BY THE RINGING OF THE BELL 



KROIVI 1753 TO 1835 



BY 



.// 



CHARLES sl^'KEYSER, 

Aullmr of " Fairmount Park," " Penn's Treaty," " Clironicles of 
Independence Hall," &c. 



V 

PHILADELPHIA : "*^Ji:.«^ \i^'m\^^^ 

Allen, Lane & Scott's Printing Housf, 
Nos. 229-231-233 South Fifth Street. 

1893- 



/iih'-rf' 



Copyright 1893, 
By CHARLES S. KEYSER. 



THE OFFICIAL ESCORT OF THE BELL. 



HON. EDWIN S. STUART, 

Mayor of the City of Philadelphia. 



Joint Special Committee of Councils on^^World's 
Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. 

Elias p. Smithers, Chairman. 



Edward A. Anderson, 
James B. Anderson, 
Joseph H. Brown, 
Robert W. Finletter, 
Thomas Firth, 
William H. Garrett, 
John E. Hanifen, 
Franklin M. Harris, 
Isaac D. Hetzell, 

R. C. HORR, 

Ellsworth H. Hults, 



George W. Kendrick, Jr. 
William McMullen, 
William McMurray, ^ 
William McCoach, 
Edward Morrell, 
Edward W. Patton, 
Thomas J. Ryan, 
Thomas J. Rose, 
Charles K. Smith, 
Uselma C. Smith, 
William Van Osten. 



James L. Miles, President of Select Council. 
Wencel Hartman, President of Common Council. 
George W. Kochersperger, Secretary. 
George E. Vickers, General Agent. 
James Franklin, Sergeant at Arms. 



-©- 



Alfred S. Eisenhower, 

Chief of Bureau of City Property and ex-officio 
Custodian of Independence Hall and the Bell. 

Thomas Gillingham, William Search, 

George Benners, George Matchner, 

Of the Afunicipal Police of Philadelphia, Guards of the Bell, 




' 'A)id proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the 
inhabitants thereof : it shall be a jubilee unto you. ' ' 



Among the bells of the world no one has been associated 
with events of as great import to humanity as the Liberty 
Bell of the old State House (Independence Hall) in Phila- 
delphia. 

Its prophetic inscription, its warnings through a generation 
to the Government of Great Britain, its appeals to the peo- 
ple to assemble for the redress of their grievances, and its 
defiant clangor that memorable day of the Declaration of our 
Independence, its rejoicing pealings over the completed w^ork 
of the Revolution, its last tolling over the dead of the nation, 
gives its story an abiding interest to the nation and the world. 

(7) 



8 

The Assembly of Pennsylvania customarily had in its pos- 
session a bell for official purposes, from, the organization of the 
Province. Its ordinary use was to call the Assembly to- 
gether morning and afternoon during its sessions, and to 
announce the hour of the opening of the Courts of Justice to 
the people. 

Its most stately use was to announce the proclamation of 
the accession of a member of the Royal Family to the throne 
and the proclamations of the treaties of peace and declarations 
of war. 

This Bell, which, following the customary use of those bells, 
announced the Declaration of Independence, was ordered by 
the superintendents of the State House from the agent of the 
Province in London in 175 1. It was required to weigh about 
two thousand pounds and to be lettered with the following 
words "well shaped, in large letters" : — 

" By order of the Assembly of the Province of Pennsylva- 
nia for the State House in the city of Philadelphia 1752," 
and underneath " Proclaim liberty throughout all the land 
unto all the inhabitants thereof." 

The Bell arrived at the end of August, 1752. Early in 
September, however, it was cracked by a stroke of the clap- 
per, without any other violence, and thereupon recast by 
Pass & Stow, in Philadelphia, and again hung in 1753. 
This recasting was not satisfactory, and the founders ob- 
tained the privilege of recasting the Bell. In June, 1753, it 
was hung in the State House ; it has never been outside of its 
walls until the present year except from September, 1777, 
when it was taken to Allentown, then a long distance from 
the city, for safety, and there or elsewhere securely kept until 
after the British army evacuated Philadelphia, and again, 
from January, 1885, when it was taken under escort to New 
Orleans and returned to the State House at the close of the 
exhibition held there that year. 

The diameter of the Bell is five feet at the lip, and it is 
three inches through in the thickest portion ; its weight is 
two thousand and eighty pounds. 



It is lettered in a line entirely encircling the crown with 
the sentence: — 

Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the LAND unto all 
THE Inhabitants thereof, Lev. xxv, v. x. 

Iininediately under this sentence, also in a line completely 
encircling the Bell: — • 

By Order of the Assembly of the Province of Pexxsylvania 
FOR THE State House in Philada. 



Pass and Stow. 

Philada. 

M D C C L I II . 



THE RECORD OF THE BELL. 



August 27th, 1753 (afternoon). — The Bell was first rung to 
call the Assembly together. It was during the session in which 
it was resolved to make and continue the issue of the province 
money, notwithstanding the order of the Lords Justices of 
the Crown ; and in which the Assembly claimed the right 
under the charter of the province to ordain, make, and enact 
any laws whatsoever for raising money for the public use, 
with the assent and approbation of the freemen of the country. 

May 17th, 1755. — It was again rung to convene the Assem- 
bly, when its members, taking the higher ground for their 
rights as Englishmen, addressed the Proprietary Governor 
in this language, to which it adhered to the hour of its disso- 
lution : "We do not as a part of the Legislature desire any 
independency but what the Constitution authorizes, which 
gives us a right to judge for ourselves and our constituents of 
the utility and propriety of laws, and never will oblige us to 
make laws by direction." 

February 3d, 1757. — It convened them when they sent 
"Mr. Franklin," "home to England" to solicit redress of 
their grievances. 

February 21 st, 1761. — -The proclaiming of King George 
III. was read at the ringing of this Bell before a great con- 
course of the people. 

January 25th, 1763. — It rang to proclaim the preliminary 
treaty of peace at Fontainbleau. 

September 12th, 1764. — It rang the Assembly together 
this day, when another step was made in the Revolution. 
The Massachusetts Bay votes were received, acquainting the 
Assembly with the instructions sent by that Colony to its 
agent in London, directing him to use his endeavors to ob- 
tain a repeal of the Sugar Act and to exert himself to pre- 

(10) 



II 

vent a Stamp Act or any other imposition and taxes upon 
them and the other American Provinces. 

September 22d, 1764. — It again convened the Assembly, 
when, responding to the Massachusetts Bay letter, it wrote to 
its agent in London, most earnestly requesting him to exert 
his utmost endeavors to prevent any imposition and taxes on 
the Colonies from being laid by the Parliament, " declaring 
that as they neither are nor can be represented under their 
present circumstances in that Legislature, to use his endeavors 
to obtain a repeal or at least an amendment of the Act for 
regulating the sugar trade, which we apprehend must prove 
very detrimental to the trade of the Continental Colonies in 
America." 

September 9th, 1765. — It rang to convene the Assembly to 
consider a resolution to accept a plan for a Congress of the 
Colonies, at which it was represented in New York on the 
7th of October, 1765. A great landing stage of our liber- 
ties. 

September 21st, 1765. — It convened the Assembly to con- 
sider the Act of Parliament " imposing stamp duties and 
other duties on his Majesty s subjects in America." 

October 5th, 1765. — The Bell was muffled and tolled when 
the ship " Royal Charlotte," bearing the stamps for Pennsyl- 
vania, New Jersey, and Maryland, came up the Delaware 
under the convoy of the royal man of war " The Sardine ;" 
it summoned the town meeting— several thousand citizens to 
to the Square, by whose resolves the stamps were transferred 
to "The Sardine," and not permitted to be landed. 

October 31st, 1765. — The Stamp Act went into operation ; 
"the Bell was again muffled and tolled." "The people 
mourned the death of liberty ;" they burned publicly stamp 
papers at the coffee house, and remained firm and resolved 
until the repeal of the Act came. 

September 20th, 1766. — The Bell convened the Assembly 
this day, when it voted ^^4000 to the king's use, the last of 
the large sums to carry on the military operations of Great 
Britain in the Colonies. 



12 

April 25th, 1768. — At the ringing of the Bell the mer- 
chants of Philadelphia held a meeting and set forth " the 
grievances" of the people, which were these several Acts of 
Parliament : — 

^"^ First. — Against making steel in the Province." 

" Second. — Against planing and slitting mills, and iron 
manufactories, iron being the product of the country and its 
manufactures articles of prime necessit)'." 

" Third. — Against hat making." 

''Fourth.- — Against woolen manufacture." 

"■Fifth. — For the shipment of paupers to the Colonies."- 

July 30th, 1768. — A meeting was called, by the ringing of 
the Bell at the State House, of the freemen of the city and 
county of Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon, this day, to 



*The Province came into existence subject to the Navigation Acts 
passed in 1651 to 1663, under which our sugar, tobacco, cotton, wool, 
and indigo could be exported to no country but England, and no mer- 
chandise could be imported into England from the Colonies except in 
English vessels, and none to the Colonies except in English vessels laden 
in England ; this was followed by the Act forbidding the exportation of 
woolen hats from the Colonies or from one Colony to another passed in 
1732 ; the Act imposing on the importation of sugar, rum, and molasses 
almost prohibitory duties, passed in 1733 ; the Act forbidding the erec- 
tion of iron works, the manufacture of steel, and the felling of pitch and 
pine trees except in inclosures, passed in 1730 ; the Sugar Act, re-enacted 
in 1764; the Stamp Act, passed in 1765; and the duty on glass, paper, 
painters' colors, tea, passed in 1767. These Acts, while general, espe- 
cially affected the shipbuilders on the Delaware and the large manufac- 
turing and commercial interests of the Province of Pennsylvania. The 
taxation to support the wars of the Government was another yet greater 
grievance against which the Assembly continually contended, as well 
from the religious convictions of its members as from the intolerable 
drain it had become upon its finances. This taxation, beginning in 1746, 
with a grant for the king's use of ^,"5000, reached in the successive years 
i757i '8, and '9, ^100,000 annually, and in the twenty years from 1746 to 
1766, _;^5or,ooo, while the whole amount of money the Province was per- 
mitted to retain for a permanent circulation from 1722 to the Revolution 
was but ^80,000, consisting wholly of paper money of their own issue, 
the gold and silver received in the commerce of the Province being re- 
quired and used for the purchases of British manufactures ; this taxa- 
tion and the injury to the legal character of their Province money issues 
in 1749 completed the measure of "the grievances." 



13 

consider instructions to be given to our representatives in the 
present critical and alarming condition of these Colonies. 
The resolutions passed at this meeting read: "Thus are the 
Colonies reduced to a level of slaves. The produce of their 
toil is at the disposal of others to whom they never en- 
trusted power and over whom they have no control. Justice 
is administered, government is exercised, and a standing army 
maintained at the expense of the people, and yet without the 
least dependence on them ; nay, the money which we have 
earned with sweat and toil and labor, being taken from us 
without our knowledge or consent, is given away in pensions 
to venal slaves, who have shown a readiness to assist in rivet- 
ing the chains upon their brethren and children." 

September 27th, 1770. — The Bell was rung to assemble a 
meeting of the people of the city in the State House yard 
at three o'clock in the afternoon ; this meeting resolved that 
the claims of Parliament to tax the Colonies were subversive 
of the constitutional rights of the Colonies. That the Union 
of the Colonies ought to be maintained. That every one 
who imported goods into the city contrary to these resolutions 
was an enemy to the peace and good order of the city. 

February 4th, 1771. — The Bell called the Assembly together 
this day, when it petitioned the King for the repeal of the 
duty on tea. 

October i8th, 1773. — It rang together a meeting of the 
people in the State House yard, when resolutions were passed 
to denounce the buyers or vendors of tea as enemies to their 
country. 

Captain Ayres of the ship " Polly " was expected to arrive. 

December 27th, 1773. — At ten o'clock A. M., the Bell rang 
together the largest crowd ever assembled to that time; it 
filled the State House and overflowed into the Square. They 
passed the resolution that the tea in the ship " Polly " should 
not be landed, and that Captain Ayres carry it back again ; 
that they provision the vessel for his return with his cargo. 
And the tea vessel, the captain, and the tea sailed down the 
river to return no more. 



14 

June 1st, 1774. — The Bell was muffled and tolled on the 
closing of the port of Boston ; the ships were at half-mast on 
the Delaware, and the houses through the city were closed. 

June 1 8th, 1774. — The people convened at the tolling of 
the Bell, in the State House yard, pledged the city to the 
common cause of liberty, and raised a subscription for the 
Boston sufferers.* 

April 25th, 1775. — The tidings of the Battle of Lexington 
reached Philadelphia April 24th. Notices were given for a 
public meeting, and the next day the Bell called together 
"eight thousand people by computation who assembled in the 
yard." " The company unanimously agreed to associate for 
the purpose of defending with arms their lives, liberty, and 
property against all attempts to deprive them of them." 

May loth, 1775. — The second Congress began its sessions 
in the seats of the Assembly vacated for them — each body 
sitting in chambers on the opposite sides of the corridor of 
the State House — the one by the authority of the king — and 
the other by the authority of the people. 

June 7th, 1776. — Richard Henry Lee offered his resolution 
for the independency of the Colonies, 

'■'Resolved, That these united colonies are and ought to be 
free and independent States, and as such they have and of 
right ought to have full power to make war, conclude peace, 
establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which 
other States may rightfully do." 

June 27th, 1776. — A declaration, of the deputies of Penn- 
sylvania met in Provincial Council, was laid before Congress 
and read expressing their willingness to concur in a vote of 
Congress declaring the United Colonies free and independent 
States."* 

June 28th, 1776. — The draft of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was submitted to Congress. 

* The Friends of the Philadelphia meeting sent in the winter of 1775 
;^254o in gold to the Boston sufferers. 
**Jour. of Cong., vol. II., page 230. 









/" 




"^1 



y 



THOMAS JEFFERSON, 
Author oi-" tv.f. Declaration of Independence. 



A DECLARATION BY THE REPRESENTATIVES 

OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED. 



-©- 



When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one 
people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with 
another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and 
equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle 
them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they 
should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ; 
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ; 
that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Tiiat, to 
secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving 
their just powers from the consent of the governed ; that, whenever any 
form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of 
the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, 
laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in 
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and 
happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long estab- 
lished, should not be changed for light and transient causes ; and, ac- 
cordingly, all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to 
suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing 
the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of 
abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a 
design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is 
their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for 
their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these col- 
onies, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their 
former systems of government. The history of the present kingof Great 
Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having, in 
direct object, the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. 
To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world : — 

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary 
for the public good. 

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing 
importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be 
obtained ; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to 
them. 

(17) 



i8 

He»has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large dis- 
tricts of people, unless tliose people would relinquish the right of repre- 
sentation in the legislature ; a right inestimable to them, and formidable 
to tyrants only. 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncom- 
fortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the 
sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. 

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with 
manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. 

He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others 
to be elected ; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, 
have returned to the people at large for their exercise ; the State remain- 
ing, in the meantime, exposed to all the danger of invasion from without 
and convulsions within. 

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States ; for that 
purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners ; refusing to 
pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the condi- 
tions of new appropriations of lands. 

He Jias obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent 
to laws for establishing judiciary powers. 

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of 
their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. 

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of 
officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. 

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without 
the consent of our legislature. 

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, 
the civil power. 

He has combined, with others, to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to 
our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws ; giving his assent to 
to their acts of pretended legislation : 

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us : 

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any mur- 
ders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States : 

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world : 

For imposing taxes on us without our consent : 

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury : 

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses : 

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring prov- 
ince, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its 
boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for 
introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies : 

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and 
altering, fundamentally, the powers of our governments : 

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves in- 
vested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 



19 

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protec- 
tion, and waging war against us. 

He has phmdered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and 
destroyed the hves of our people. 

He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercena- 
ries to complete the work of death, desolation, and tyranny, already 
begun, with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled 
in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized 
nation. 

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, 
to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their 
friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. 

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored 
to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, 
whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all 
ages, sexes, and conditions. 

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress, 
in the most humble terms ; our repeated petitions have been answered 
only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by 
every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free 
people. 

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. 

We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts made by their 
legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have 
reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement 
here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and 
we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow 
these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and 
correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and 
consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which 
denounces our separation, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, 
enemies in war, in peace, friends. 

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, 
in GENERAL CONGRESS assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of 
the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the 
authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and 
declare. That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free 
and independent States ; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the 
British crown, and that all political connexion between them and the 
state of Great Britain, is, and ought to be, totally dissolved ; and that, as 
FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full power to levy war, 
conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all 
other acts and things which independent States may of right do. 
And, for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the pro- 
tection of DIVINE PROVIDENCE, we mutually pledge to each other, 
our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. 



20 



The foregoing declaration was, by order of Congress, engrossed, and 

signed by the following members : — 

JOHN HANCOCK. 



New Hampshire. 

JOSIAH BaRTLETT, 

William Whipple, 
Matthew Thornton. 

Massachusetts Bay. 

Samuel Adams, 
John Adams, 
Robert Treat Paine, 
Elbridge Gerrv. 

Rhode /stand. 

Stephen Hopkins, 
William Ellery. 

Connecticut. 

Roger Sherman, 
Samuel Huntington, 
William Williams, 
Oliver Wolcott. 

Ne7u }ork. 

William Floyd, 
Philip Livingston, 
Francis Lewis, 
Lewis Morris. 

jVeza Jersey. 

Richard Stockton, 
John Witherspoon, 
Francis Hopkinson, 
John Hart. 
Abraham Clark. 

Pennsytvania. 

Robert Morris, 
Benjamin Rush, 
Benjamin Franklcn, 
John Morton, 
George Clymer, 



James Smith, 
George Taylor, 
James Wilson, 
George Ross. 

Delaware. 

Cesar Rodney, 
George Read, 
Thomas M'Kean. 

IMaryland. 

S.A.MUEL Chase, 
William Paca, 
Thomas Stone, 
Charles Carroll 



of Carrollton. 



Virginia. 



George Wythe, 
Richard Henry Lee, 
Thomas Jefferson, 
Benjamin Harrison, 
Thomas Nelson, Jr., 
Francis Lightfoot Lee, 
Carter Braxton. 

North Carolina. 

William Hooper, 
Joseph Hewes, 
John Penn. 

South Carolina. 

Edward Rutledge, 
Thomas Heyward, Jr., 
Thomas Lynch, Jr., 
Arthur Middleton. 

Georgia. 

Button Gwinnett, 
Lyman Hall, 
George Walton. 



21 

July 4th, 1776. — Late in the evening of this day the DEC- 
LARATION OF Independence was adopted. 

By this paper a broad and deep chasm was made through 
the country; on the one side were those closely allied by 
their lineage, interests, and associations to the immovable 
British aristocracy; on the other, all there was of the spirit, 
modes of thought, and action of the revolutionary nation by 
whose aid the issues of the struggle were in the end deter- 
mined. But for this paper and the influence of its writer 
upon that revolutionary spirit of the time of which he was 
"the leader," the result of the struggle had been no more 
than a separation of the two countries, with the institutions, 
laws and usages, and social divisions unchanged ; and for this 
reason it survives. 

Its words grave themselves on the hearts of the men, 
women, and children of the nation generation after genera- 
tion, deeper and deeper with the lapse of years, and while our 
constitutions change in amendatory clauses, by judicial con- 
structions, and by the wager of battle, and our laws loosen 
year by year from their old moorings in the barbarous cus- 
toms and false distinctions of our ancestors, this paper re- 
mains changeless, the central light from which we have de- 
rived our existence and still continue to exist as a nation. 

July 5th, 1776. — Copies of the Declaration were sent by the 
Congress to all the counties of the Province, and to the sev- 
eral assemblies, conventions, and councils of safety, to the 
commanding of^cers of the Continental troops, and at the 
head of the army.'-'' 

The Committee of Safety ordered : That the sheriff of 
Philadelphia read, or cause to be read and proclaimed, at the 
State House, in the city of Philadelphia, on Monday, the 
eighth day of July, instant, at twelve o'clock, at noon of 
the same day, the Declaration of the Representatives of 
the United Colonies of America, and that he cause all his 
ofificers and constables of the said city to attend the reading 
thereof. 

*Jour. of Cong., vol. II., page 247. 



22 

The Committee of Safety resolved that every member in 
or near the city be ordered to meet at the Committee Cham- 
ber before twelve o'clock, on Monday, to proceed to the 
State House, when the Declaration of Independence is to be 
proclaimed. The Committee of Inspection of the City and 
Liberties were requested to attend the Proclamation of In- 
dependence, at the State House, on Monday next, at twelve 
o'clock. 



THE PROCLAMATION. 



July 8th, 1776, near the hour of twelve, the Bell 

WAS RUNG FOR THE PROCLAMATION OF THE DECLARATION. 
The place selected for the reading was a treeless open space 
near the rear of the central entrance to the building. The 
Square, a level ground, broke off abruptly on its south side 
like an earthwork. The State House ran along its whole 
north line — a low, irregular wall of buildings in those years, 
with a square, bastion-like tower in the centre, and spire in 
which the Bell that day hung, and beat against the still, hot 
air of all revolutions. 

The order of the city and Province processions in those 
days* was, first, the Constables, with their staffs; the Sheriff 
and the Coroner, with their white wands to usher the way ; 
if the Mayor and Recorder of the city were there, they had 
the next place in the order of precedency, then any military 
men "with their levee," after them the members of Congress 
and other dignitaries of the United Colonies. 

After the chief dignitaries in these processions should 
ordinarily have followed, according to the rigid formality of 
the times — " the town's gentlemen." The rest were serious 
titleless citizens — the same undermost, resolute outgrowth of 
every age which appears in the first stages of revolutions. 

The Committee of Inspection moved from the Philosophi- 
cal Hall, on Second Street, at eleven o'clock, and thence to 
the Lodge, where they joined the Council of Safety, and 
together continued on to the Square. 

The Bell ceased tolling. 

John Nixon, soldier and financier — a strong-voiced, open- 
featured man, who was true until the struggle's and his life's 

*Pa. Mag. of Hist., No. i, vol. 2, page 43. 
(25) 



26 

end, read the paper which preserves our liberties. The plat- 
form on which he stood that forever memorable day, was a 
rough frame stage ; around him those resolved citizens and 
their representatives, who, in their children's children were to 
be the masters of a continent — the foremost nation of all time. 
He read the paper, thenceforth to be the common property 
and faith of that nation, to its close ; his voice, audible to 
every one, was heard a long distance from the Square. 

"The audience then gave three repeated huzzas" — THE 
Bell again began tolling, and the chimes and all the 
bells of the city rang together. 

Nine of the associators, with the same rude iconoclasm by 
which these changes are wrought in every age — the destruc- 
tion of all held most sacred to the time — went into the build- 
ino" and took down the king's arms from the walls of the 




king's court, and, carrying them to the open common, piled 
casks one upon the other, placed the arms upon them, and set 
all on fire — Avith great demonstrations of joy. 

"The night was starlight and beautiful." 

September 26th, 1776. — The Bell called together for the 
last time the remaining members of the Assembly of the 
Province of Pennsylvania, and that Assembly dissolved, 

October 24th, 1781. — The Bell was rung "by order of the 
Council" at twelve o'clock noon this day — to announce to the 
people "the surrender of Lord Cornwallis to the Confederate 
arms of the United States and of France — a day of the most 
intense interest, joy, and rejoicing of the people and their 
representatives of the two allied nations yet witnessed in 
America. The standard of the State was hoisted to the peak 
of the belfry over the State House. Four pieces of artillery 
responded to the pealing of the Bell, and all the city bells 



27 

answered. The streets were witnesses of the contending tumult 
of feeling, the churches were crowded with worshipers unit- 
ing in ascriptions to God for their great deliverance. The 
power of the British throne was at last broken in America.* 

April i6th, 1783. — It rang the Proclamation of Peace. 

From this time the Bell, now world-wide known as the 
Bell of Independence, continued for half a century proclaim- 
ing its anniversaries and the birth of Washington; tolling 
also at the death of our great men, and welcoming illus- 
trious men of our own and other nations. 

November 27th, 1781. — His Excellency the Commander in 
Chief and his lady arrived in town from Virginia. " The old 
Bell was rung" and all the bells of the city, and demonstra- 
tions of joy welcomed him from all ranks of the people. 

July 4th, 1824, was ushered in by the ringing of this Bell 
and all the bells of the city. " The Democratic Society met 
in the State House and read the great Declaration." 

September 29th, 1824.— The Bell rang to welcome Lafay- 
ette to the Hall of Independence, " Under arches wreathed 
with flowers, through streets brilliant with the ever deepen- 
ing throngs of the people, waving flags and joyous shouting, 
the procession passed along to the Hall of Independence." 
" There Lafayette, leaving his barouche, ascended a carpeted 
stage in front of the m.ain door of the building, and then the 
continuing shouting of the people, the martial strains of music, 
which had accompanied the long route of the procession like 



* The requirements for this campaign were as follows : Seventy to 
eighty pieces of battering cannon, and one hundred of field artillery 
were completely fitted and sent on for service in three to four weeks 
progressively, and the whole, together with the expense of provisions for 
and pay of the army, was accomplished on the credit of Robert Morris, 
a merchant of Philadelphia, which he pledged in his notes, which were 
all paid, to the amount of |i, 400, 000. " There was no money in the war 
office chest ; the treasury was empty." 

The movement across the Delaware, resulting in the battle of Trenton, 
was also effected with specie furnished by this great financier of the 
Colonies. Morris, Jefferson, and Washington were the purse, the pen, 
and the sword of the Revolution. 



28 

the roar of far advancing seas, came to its culmination in the 
thunder of a hundred cannon from the Square and the glory- 
peaHng strokes of the Bell of the Revolution." 

July 4th, 1826. — It Ushered in the Year of Jubilee, 
the fiftieth anniversary of the Republic — a day celebrated 
everywhere through the land with great demonstrations of 
joy, and marked by the death of Thomas Jefferson and John 
Adams, an event known to the people only after some days — 
such was the imperfect communication of the times. 

July 24th, 1826, — On this day the death of Thomas Jeffer- 
son was commemorated in Philadelphia. An innumerable 
multitude gathered in the Square. 

On the spot where the Declaration was first read to the 
people, a platform was erected covered with black cloth, over 
this a canopy draped also with black, on which was laid the 
flag of the nation. 

"The Bell of the State House was muffled; to its deep 
tone the slow measures of its tolling gave a very solemn im- 
pression." 

July 4th, 183 1, is the last recorded ringing of the Bell for this 
anniversary — " the young men of the city rang the old State 
House Bell to commemorate the day of our Independence." 

February 22d, 1832, is the last recorded ringing to commem- 
orate the birth of Washington. 

In the same year it tolled the death of the last survivor of 
the signers of the Declaration, Charles Carroll, of Carrollton. 

Jul)' 2 1st, 1834, — The Bell tolled once more. Lafayette 
was dead. The people of Philadelphia consecrated this day 
to his memory ; they met together in the Hall and thence in a 
procession to divine service, with a pomp and solemnity 
worthy of the two nations and the occasion. 

The revolutionary mission of the Bell here reaches its com- 
pletion. 

Of the great actors in the drama few survived. The au- 
thor of the Declaration was dead ; the leader of its armies, 
and he who wrote the resolutions of our independency, were 
dead ; the colossus of its debates, its diplomatist and its 



29 

financier, were dead ; its orator was dead — Jefferson, Wash- 
ington, Lee, Adams, Franklin, Morris, and Henry were dead. 
And of all that immortal list of names, the signers of the 
Declaration, not oneremained ; the representative, of the great 
nation, best beloved by the people, had joined the innumera- 
ble throng of the departed ; the final struggle which com- 
pleted our independency was ended, and the Bell had rung to 
do its great general, honor; of the greater actors of that 
struggle, one John Marshall of Virginia survived ; he sat in 
judgment on the finished work and gave the measure of its 
strength and power for the people. 

July 8th, 1835. — The Bell's last Tolling. John 
Marshall died in Philadelphia on the sixth day of July, 1835 ; 
his remains were on the day of this anniversary borne to 
Virginia for burial. The Bar of Philadelphia united with 
their fellow citizens to do honor to his memory ; with them 
walked, with the faltering steps of extreme old age — his 
eighty-eighth year, the venerable Bishop White.'* It was 
during these funeral solemnities that the Bell, while slowly 
tolling, without other violence, parted through its great side, 
and was silent thenceforth forever. 

So it was ordered by " the Great Disposer of human 
events," that he who was the Chief Justice of the nation, 
and its most illustrious judicial name, should die almost 
within the shadow of that Hall whence the people took down 
the king's arms from the king's court that so justice might 
endure. And that this Bell, its mission for our independence 
completed, should have its last association with his venerated 
name. 

*Died 1836. 



ITINERARY. 

Philadelphia to Chicago. 

© 

Leave Philadelphia, Broad Street Station, Tuesday, April 25111, 10.00 A. M. 
Via Pennsylvania Railroad lines. 

Arrive Harrisburg Tuesday, April 25tli, at 1.15 P. M. 

Leave Harrisbi/rg Tuesday, April 25th, at 3.00 P. M. 

Passing Sunbury Tuesday, April 25th, at 4.55 P. M. 

Passing Williamsport Tuesday, April 25th, at 6.30 P. M. 

Passing Lock Havex Tuesday, April 25th, at 7.25 P. M. 

Passing Renovo, Tuesday, April 25th, at 8.20 P. ^L 

Passing Emporium Tuesday, April 25th, at 10. 10 P. M. 

Passing Kane Wednesday, April 26th, at 12.20 A. M. 

Passing Warren Wednesday, April 26th, at 1.30 A. M. 

Arrive Erie Wednesday, April 26th, at 4.00 A. M. 

Leave Erie Wednesday, April 26th, at 12.00 M. 

.\rrive Corry Wednesday, April 26th, at 1.30 P. M. 

Leav Corry Wednesday-, April 26tii, at 1.45 P. M. 

Via Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad. 
Pa '.sing TiTusviLLE Wednesday, April 26th, at 2.45 P. M. 

On Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad. 

Arrive Oil City Wednesday, April 26th, at 3.25 P. M. 

On Allegheny Valley Railroad. 

Leave Oil City Wednesday, April 26tli, at 3.30 P. M. 

On Allegheny Valley Railroad. 

Passing Franklin Wednesday, April 26th, at 4.00 P. M. 

On Allegheny V^alley Railroad. 

Arrive Pitt.sburgh Wednesday, April 26th, at 7.30 P. .M. 

Leave Pittsburgh Thursday, April 27th, at 6.30 A. M. 

Via Pennsylvania Railroad lines. 

Passing Rochester Thursday, April 27th, at 7.30 A. M. 

Passing Alliance Thursday, April 27th, at 10.00 A. M. 

Arrive Cleveland Thursday, April 27th, at 12.00 M. 

Leave Cleveland Thursday, April 27th, at 4.00 P. M. 

Via Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway. 

Passing Wellington Thursday, April 27th, at 5.10 P. '^ 

Arrive Columbus Thursday, April 27th, at 8.00 P. M. 

Leave Columbus Thursday, April 27th, at 11.00 P. M. 

Via Pennsylvania Railroad. 

Arrive Indianapolis Friday, April 28th, at 5.00 A. AL 

Leave Indianapolis Friday, April 28th, at 2.00 P. M. 

Arrive Chicago Friday, April 28th, at 9.00 P. M. 

HEADQUARTERS AT CHICAGO, AUDITORIUM HOTEL. 



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